


staccato

by anaer



Series: staccato [1]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Barry is a very small part of this, Hurt Wally West, Kidnapping, Pre-Flashpoint (DCU), Torture, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaer/pseuds/anaer
Summary: "I’ve told you before: you’ll thank me one day, but even if you don’t…you’ll be better for it.”
Relationships: Wally West/Hunter Zolomon
Series: staccato [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585348
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	staccato

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this is sometime after Flash Rebirth, and ignores any canon I didn't think about or don't like. Timelines? Who cares about that?

_Drip_.

The chill of damp concrete pressed into his face, making him shiver. The thin cotton of his t-shirt was soaked, from sweat or the leaking pipe he didn’t know, but it did nothing to help the cold. Wally pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. He pushed himself up to his knees. The room didn’t let any light in, but he still closed his eyes as he wrapped his hand in the chain keeping his arms tethered and braced himself. 

_Drip_.

Everything hurt. There wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t bruised, and there were at least two breaks that he was aware of – probably more that he wasn’t. His head pounded relentlessly. Every time he moved, something inside his gut twisted in a way that should have worried him when he wasn’t healing the way he should be, but the muted panic that sat at the back of his mind wasn’t for himself.

 _Drip_.

That endless, insufferable noise, loud in the otherwise silent room, made him want to scream. He’d no idea how long he’d been hearing it – no idea how long he’d been here. His sense of time was thrown off as badly as his powers were, and he’d been swinging back and forth between processing in real time and hyper. Every time the water fell, he twitched.

 _Drip_.

Wally ground his teeth together and pushed the noise out of his mind. It would only take one burst of speed to generate enough force to break the weak link out of the wall. It would only take a fraction of what he could normally produce. 

This was so far from normal he could cry.

_Drip._

_Goddammit_ , if he didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to smash his head against the wall. That wasn’t a productive thought. Wally reached inside himself, but the speed slipped through his grip like fluid, gone before he could grasp it. He yanked hard anyway, only getting a slight creak and a sharp line of pain up his side that left him curled over and whimpering. He wouldn’t be Wally West if that managed to stop him.

 _Drip_.

He braced himself again and thought of his family. Linda and Irey. _Jai_. The burst of speed was a fraction of what he was capable of, but all he could manage. It was enough. The weak link shattered and the chain broke apart, freeing him from the wall. He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

 _Drip_.

Wally needed to move. It was his base instinct – his natural inclination – but right now moving was a dream he wasn’t quite sure how to make reality. He grit his teeth and pushed himself up anyway. He had an idea of where the door was (to the left, across the room), but the first step tripped him up and sent him plummeting face first into the ground. He wasn’t fast enough to catch himself. Wasn’t that ironic.

 _Drip_.

He screamed in frustration at that god forsaken sound and the situation, and punched the ground. Running would be easier if he weren’t still hobbled. The shackles had long since rubbed his ankles raw, but it was easy to forget them when he hadn’t had room to move. They reminded him this hadn’t been a spur of the moment abduction. This had been long planned.

It had to have been planned to be able to hold him for so long.

 _Drip_.

Nails bit into his palms. Others would be looking by now, he reminded himself. At the least, Linda would’ve called Barry. The idea of waiting for rescue chafed him. Every second that passed was a second too long, and a second closer to the unthinkable. He shook his head, making his decision, and inched his way across the empty concrete floor until his hand hit the wall.

 _Drip_.

It took all Wally’s strength to clamber to his feet using the wall as support. 

The lights clicked on. Bright, flickering fluorescent that blossomed his headache into a migraine. His captor appeared in front of him, too fast for him to track even when his powers weren’t fritzing. The punch caught him across the jaw, hard enough that his head went flying, slamming into the wall, and he crumpled to the floor. 

_Drip_.

A hand fisted in his hair, yanking his head up to meet familiar, crazed eyes. He blinked the sudden blurriness out of his vision.

“Trying to run?” The words were hissed angrily, spit landing in his face. Wally would’ve winced if he’d had the energy to do anything more than glare. 

“Fuck you,” he snarled back. 

“I’m only trying to _help_ you,” he got back even angrier before another punch had him seeing stars. “You need to be reminded of the stakes.” 

Wally’s eyes widened, breath coming in panicked bursts. “Hunter—!” Except he was released, only just managing to keep himself from cracking his head on the floor, and Zoom was gone, the door swinging wildly in his wake. 

_Drip_.

Zoom was back, a struggling seven year old in his grip, one hand wrapped loosely around his neck. “Do you want me to kill him, Wally?”

“D-daddy!” He stopped struggling so much when his eyes landed on Wally, panic and horror dancing across his tiny face.

Jai. God. Wally clenched his fists tighter, emotions strung out somewhere on the sliding line between rage and terror. 

“Hurt him, and I will _kill you_ ,” he promised.

Hunter squatted down next to Wally, Jai still held tight in his grip. “I don’t _want_ to hurt him, Wally. I want you to learn.” He nuzzled his nose against Jai’s hair. Jai’s crying was loud and ugly as he reached his short arms out for his dad. Wally clenched his fists, every ounce of self-control he had in him keeping him from going for the punch. Not when Zoom had his hand wrapped around his son’s neck, one move away from…

Wally couldn’t think about that.

_Drip._

He twitched.

“What about you, Jai?” Hunter asked. “What do you want?” 

Jai was crying harder. Terrified. “I-I w-want to go h-home,” he sobbed. That hurt Wally more than anything else had. If anything happened to Jai, that was on _him_. This whole situation was on him. That was what Hunter wanted. 

No. Not Hunter. _Zoom_. He needed to keep that demarcation clear in his mind. Hunter had been his friend. He’d been a good man. That part of him was warped beyond recognition now. 

“He wants to go home, Wally,” Zoom repeated. And then, to Jai: “That depends on your father.”

His mind was tugging at the edges of hyper time again, processing everything just a bit faster. Not as fast as he needed to be, but hopefully enough. He just needed an opening. 

“Hunter, he’s just a kid.” Wally couldn’t stop himself from trying to appeal to the rational man he used to know.

_Drip._

Hunter – _Zoom_ – let go of Jai’s neck, his hand reaching back down towards Wally, and a sudden surge of adrenaline kicked him into motion. Wally lunged into him, catching him off guard as he bowled him over, and struck him hard in the face. A split second, and he’d siphoned off as much speed as he could manage right now – barely a fraction, but hopefully enough to slow Zoom down for long enough – before grabbing Jai out of mid-air and dashing to the door. He couldn’t run, not really, but fear cranked his speed back up, got him through the door and down the hall before Hunter could recover.

Jai clung tight to him. “Dadd—,” he started, cutting himself off with a sob.

“It’s gonna be alright,” Wally reassured, praying it wasn’t a lie. “I won’t let – anything bad happen.” 

Wally found the staircase behind the second door he tried, but tripped halfway up, stopped short by the chain still hobbling him. He hit the stairs hard. Pain exploded through him, squeezing the adrenaline back out of him, and he gasped for breath. 

A door slammed in the distance.

Panic ate at him. Hunter would be along in a fraction of a second, and Wally wasn’t sure how much of a fight he had left in him. His brain ran through a million scenarios all at once. There was no way he could get them both out safely. What he could do…

Wally hugged Jai tight to his chest. A spark of lightning jumped between them, everything Wally could give him right now. “Run,” he whispered furiously and let go. Jai disappeared up the stairs in a flash, and Wally could only hope the gift of speed would last long enough for Jai to get far enough away. He pushed himself back to his feet.

The staircase door slammed open.

Zoom appeared in the doorway, vibrating, but the anger Wally expected wasn’t there at all. The only anger here boiled up inside Wally.

“See,” Hunter said. “You can be better. You just need the right _motivation_.”

“You don’t touch my children!” he shouted, diving for Zoom, but Wally was too drained right now - he'd poured everything out of him - and Hunter was gone too fast, landing a fist in his side in the same movement. Wally slammed back into the ground, a whimper at the back of his throat. He pushed himself back up. The punch this time caught him across the face again, and he blacked out.

 _Drip_.

It was the first thing he heard when he woke up. He groaned, the sound morphing into a moan when he curled up and his abdomen screamed like he’d been stabbed repeatedly. Wally wished he were still unconscious. His last dregs of power were gone with Jai, hopefully carrying his son to safety. To Barry.

The door kicked open, smashing loudly into the concrete wall. Wally jumped, heart racing. Zoom was in front of him, face twisting back and forth between anger and something Wally couldn’t place. He tried to scramble back, but barely made it a foot. Zoom snagged the end of the loose chain around his wrist. Wally fought weakly against it, managing only to twist onto his side, his free arm crushed under his body. Zoom had one foot on his back pinning him in place, and his grip was relentless. Wally's shoulder ached, on the verge of popping out of the joint.

“Don’ have t’do this.” Wally’s voice was weak, the words slurring together. He still didn’t know what this was, not exactly, but at least it didn’t involve Jai anymore.

“That’s the problem with you, Wally.” 

_Drip._

“You never want to do the hard things. I’m giving you what you _need_. I’ve told you before: you’ll thank me one day, but even if you don’t…you’ll be better for it.”

Wally screamed before the feeling of his arm breaking fully registered. _‘Humerus,’_ he thought hysterically, blinking the water out of his eyes. It wasn’t that funny a joke. Hunter let go, and his arm dropped limply to the ground next to him. 

“You got your son away. Congratulations. It doesn't change anything.”

"Won't get...near my family." He blinked the spots out of his vision. Barry, Max, Jay, Bart, Jesse…Zoom would never be able to get past them all. He'd blindsided them _once_ , taken Wally's kids from him _once_ , and it was only by miracle he'd gotten them back. That wasn't going to happen again.

 _Drip_.

It was hard to think past the pain. He needed to stop this here – he _could_ stop this here – but his head was so sluggish, body so slow, he...couldn't.

"I don't need them. They're not the only way to hurt you, Wally. They just make it easier." He paused, then added, "Besides, if you need another lesson, I can always find your son again later. He’s so helpless. Powerless." Electricity crackled from Wally's eyes, but died as quickly as it had sparked up. "Like you right now."

 _Drip_.

The flinch went through his whole body. 

Hunter knelt down beside him. Fingers touched his shoulder through the thin cloth of his t-shirt, and then shoved him over onto his stomach. The movement jostled his arm, a sharp knife of agony that made his stomach churn with nausea. It wasn’t as bad as the time he’d shattered both his legs at the same time, even if the situation was…worse. At least he could still run. 

Hunter planted a hand in the middle of his back.

He couldn’t run at all.

_Drip._

Breath on his cheek, and then Zoom’s voice, direct in his ear: “I wasn’t planning on your son, anyway. He was just there, too.” Under better circumstances, Wally would muster up something glib to say in response. That was the last time he was taking either of his children to the grocery store, much less letting them out of the house. 

“You just…like it w’en I _kick y’r ass_ ,” was the most he could manage. He was ignored.

“I decided to change tactics. You care about your family, but not enough to change. You’ve always been too selfish, _Flash_.” He sneered the name like an insult, jabbing a finger hard into a bruise on Wally’s back. It didn’t faze him. “There are different kinds of suffering. Decided to try something more… _personal_ this time.”

“Explains th’ torture.” His face slammed into the ground, leaving him dazed.

A vine of fear wrapped tight around his heart, squeezing the breath out of him. He felt off-kilter, and even the knowledge that whatever happened here, he likely wouldn’t die, did little to reassure him. He knew first-hand there were worse things you could do to someone.

_Drip._

The slow, steady leak of water was as unbearable as it was reassuring. His mind refocused, struggling through the cloud of lethargy. Hands were on his hips, lifting them. He blinked slowly, watching out of the corner of his eye. One hand reached under his body and started fiddling with the button on his jeans. Fear turned to confusion.

“What’re you—?” He shifted, a lame, unsuccessful attempt to pull away. Hunter easily held him in place.

“Change never does come easily, does it, Wally?” The zip opened slowly, tooth by tooth, or maybe it opened fast; maybe it’d been exactly normal, and his brain was processing in hyper speed again. 

It wasn't until his pants were yanked down his hips that it clicked in his mind, what was happening.

 _Drip_.

He slammed his good elbow back with as much force as he could muster. Hunter jerked away from him, a choked wheezing filling the air. Wally shoved himself over. He crashed hard onto his back and scrambled backwards, stopping short when he hit the wall. He could barely feel the pain in his body. Even the ache in his arm was numb, stabbing at him from the other side of a thick wall of panic. He glanced around for anything that might help. 

The room was still empty, his ankles were still chained together, and his powers were still unreliable. His dominant arm was useless now, too. 

The concrete was ice under his bare ass.

Hunter glared at him, a hatred that rivalled Thawne’s leaking out of his eyes. His body vibrated slightly out of focus as he sped up time around himself in order to recover. One second, two, and then he snapped back into focus breathing properly again. 

_Drip._

“This is for your own good,” he growled, then lunged. 

Wally couldn’t reply. He brought his feet up to fend him off, but his sneakers barely clipped him before Hunter got a grip on the chain between them and yanked them down to the ground. He was on top of him again, and Wally struggled, writhing and lashing out, trying to knee him with what little space there was between them, even. 

It ended with Wally back in the same position as before: face down on the ground with Hunter on top of him, only this time one hand was in his hair, pinning his cheek to the concrete, and the other gripped onto the broken chain, holding his left arm twisted up behind his back.

“ _No_.” Wally’s voice still slurred, but the anger was palpable. “’M not…not gonna let you…” Hunter let go of Wally’s head. The next second, his grip clamped down tight, squeezing the break in his arm. Wally shrieked, thrashing to throw him off. Hunter let go.

“You don’t have a choice,” he snarled. 

_Drip._

The droplet landed close enough to Wally’s face that it nearly splashed him.

Fingers dug harshly into his hips. He shook all over, a tremble too slow to vibrate. He’d lost this round, he thought dully. That was what this was. It was just one of the risks he’d signed up for. Sometimes he lost. 

_This_ had never been the consequence before. 

It wasn’t enough to make him beg. Hunter wouldn’t stop anyway, not until he was happy with Wally’s “lesson.” 

At least he hadn’t lost Jai. 

_Drip._

He turned his eyes up, blearily staring at the leaky pipe exposed through the ceiling. The water coalesced slowly, growing heavier with each passing moment. Wally watched that – focussed on that, so he didn’t have to think. It chafed, that he couldn’t think of a way to fight back. It chafed that he was terrified. 

Hunter, who had until that moment been moving around behind him, stilled. A false calm permeated the air between them, and Wally could almost pretend this wasn’t happening. The hand on his hip tightened its grip, pressing even more bruises into his skin. He closed his eyes.

That was worse. He could feel Hunter behind him, feel something pressing up against his ass. And then, Zoom's voice loud in his ear:

“You’ll be _better_ for this.”

A whimper escaped him.

 _Drip_. 

Hunter shoved himself inside him, one quick, brutal thrust that tore him apart. Wally screamed. The sound was half swallowed by the concrete against his face, scraping the skin off his cheek as Hunter pulled out only to plough right back into him, shoving his body back and forth against the ground. 

Tears streaked down his face, soaking into the ground. Wally let out a mangled sob. He stayed limp. 

"I'm not," Hunter's voice hitched, "Thawne."

 _Drip_.

"I don’t," he broke off again, gasping lowly, " _Enjoy_ hurting you." 

Hunter was deluding himself, to think he was any better than Thawne. 

"I'm still your...your friend."

Wally tuned him out, blanked his mind out to what was happening, and let the rush of pain drift him away.

_Drip._

Wally blinked lethargically, watching the droplet explode into a thousand smaller ones on impact. He shuddered, broken noises forced out of him even as he tried not to feel it happening. Time slowed down around him. Every time Hunter pulled out, it felt so long Wally hoped it was done, but then he was back again, and every time he fucked into him, it lasted a hundred years. Wally measured it like that.

Hunter was gone. Hunter was back. He was gone. Back. Gone. Back. Gone.Back.GoneBackgoneback _goneback_ —

Hunter was gone for real.

 _Drip_.

No. He wasn't. There was movement above him, Hunter speaking. The words melded together into one indecipherable blob of noise. 

_Drip_.

Darkness again, a relief from the flickering fluorescent, and then a door slammed shut, and Wally really knew he was alone.

 _Drip_.

He was wet—back there. Blood and…

 _Blood_ , a mess between his legs leaking out of him. He shouldn't still be bleeding.

 _Drip_.

Except his powers still weren't working right, he remembered. That wasn't why his _brain_ was working so slowly, struggling through basic thought processes. 

Shock. It was some kind of shock, squeezing his chest tight and wrapping a blanket of lethargy around him. 

_Drip._

He needed to…to…

Wally needed to pull his pants back up. He gathered one knee under him…then the other, whimpering at the stabbing pain searing through the lower half of his torso. His bad arm stayed limp, and he almost couldn’t feel it – almost couldn’t feel anything except…

He struggled to his feet, using the wall once more to support him.

_Drip._

Wally leaned his head over, letting the wall catch his whole body weight as he yanked his jeans back up around his hips. Buttoning them was a challenge with one working arm. Then the zip. Then he closed his eyes, and he was crying still, he realised. Softly, breath hitching slightly as water leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

He was still here, which meant…Hunter— _Zoom_ wasn’t done with him.

Zoom would be back.

_Drip._

How the fuck was _any_ of this supposed to help him?

He swallowed down the lump in his throat. There was a way to escape; he just had to figure it out. There was always a way.

Wally couldn't go through that again.

 _Drip_.

He looked up, following the sound to where he knew the rusted pipe sat in the ceiling. Maybe there was something there. Maybe he could break it free. Tentatively, he pushed off the wall.

_Drip._

He stumbled slightly to the right, his feet slid out from under him, and Wally crashed hard into the ground. He gasped for breath, moaning as he curled up. He couldn’t think about what hurt where – it was a cacophony of agony, and if he stopped to think about it, about what had happened, if he stopped to analyse _anything_ …

Wally let out a quiet sob.

 _Drip_.

A drop of water landed in front of his face.

Back to his knees, most of his weight supported by his arm, and Wally blanked out the pain. He was a fucking _superhero_ ; he was the _Flash_ ; he could deal with pain. He could do this. 

Wally’s legs wobbled beneath him when he finally managed to stand up once more. The back of his pants were wet, cold and uncomfortable. Wally squeezed his eyes together. He bit his lip, breathed in, _one, two, three, four_ …and back out.

_Drip._

The ceiling hadn’t been too high that he remembered, but the lack of light made everything guesswork. He jumped for it. Fingers brushed the metal, just missing grabbing on. Two long seconds of blackness and he came to back on his knees and gasping. 

_“Fuck!”_ he screamed, helpless, slamming the fist of his good arm weakly into the ground. The concrete scraped at his hand like it’d scraped at his face when…

_Drip._

Whatever energy he’d had left evaporated. Wally let go and curled up on the floor. He wasn’t giving up. He didn’t give up. He just…he just needed a minute. His heart was a steady _thump, thump, thump_ in his chest that echoed anguish loud in his ears.

Lightning crackled inside him. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing. His powers were still there – they were always there; no one could take that from him – he just couldn’t touch them. They sat across a chasm inside him, just out of reach. As far away as the pipe in the ceiling. 

_Drip._

Wally dragged himself back over to the wall, fighting against legs that didn’t want to work and muscles growing stiffer by the second. He tried to sit, the movement quickly aborted with a sharp whimper of pain, and he stayed curled up on his side. There was no way he could run like this.

He already couldn’t run; that didn’t change the situation.

Wally didn’t need to run, he reminded himself. He needed to keep calm. He needed patience. He needed a splint for his arm and for his ass to _stop fucking bleeding_ —

No. 

He needed the _lightning_.

_Drip._

He’d lost the count at some point. The steady breathing had given way to hyperventilating, and it was taking everything to stop the panic from building. He didn’t fight the tremor that had taken hold of him. The opposite, actually: he pushed it up, shaking faster and faster until it transformed into a faint vibration – a shadow of what he could achieve. 

It meant he could still achieve _something_.

It shifted inside him, and he could feel the wall against his back, cold through the thin t-shirt. He tried to _feel_ the wall, match his body to the vibrations, praying he could just slip through. Intangibility suddenly seemed like the best gift of all: he could float through the world a ghost, untouched. Free.

_Drip._

Linda would probably have something to say about that.

Wally choked out a wet laugh, the sound closer to a sob. 

How would he explain… _any_ of this to Linda? What he’d let…what Hunter had done to him? 

_Drip._

His thoughts were jumbled, all over the place: Linda, Hunter, Jai—

Jai. 

Jai was safe. He nodded his head, and repeated that over in his mind. Jai was alive; he’d kept him safe. Wally would let Hunter—let Zoom…

Wally would let Zoom hurt him like that a million times more if it meant Jai was safe.

_Drip._

He pushed all of that out of his mind. He still couldn't feel the wall – intangibility was as elusive as he aimed to be – but he could feel something else. He could feel it, shifting, crackling inside him, reaching back as he reached for it. Wally's eyes fluttered shut, and he let himself sink.

_Drip._

Wally jerked awake, the taste of fear stale on his lips. Every part of him ached. His muscles had stiffened uncomfortably, frozen by the chill in the air, and he couldn't move his right arm much at all. He could barely feel it below the break; a faint tingle that permeated a full numbness, but that was it. That should've been worrying, but he drifted, separate, and couldn't quite connect to what he knew he should be concerned with. 

The lights were on. 

_Drip_.

A hand around his throat, choking him - lifting him, and his whole body seized as his back slammed into the wall. Hunter—Zoom—Hunter's face was in front of him, blurry through the thin lens of tears. Crazed eyes raked him up and down, searching for something.

"I know you're angry about what I'm doing to you." Wally didn't feel angry. Wally didn't feel anything. "You're always so quick-tempered. You use it like armour, to protect yourself from pain, from hurt – from what you need to grow."

An overwhelming sense of clarity settled over him. He stared at Hunter, face blank.

"No smart comeback?" Hunter snapped when the silence had gone on too long.

 _Drip_. 

"Nn," he tried. His tongue was too heavy to move. He twitched his fingers, dragged his hand up to grab at the yellow fabric stretched over Hunter's chest. "No." And then, "'M not…gonna kill you...Hun'er."

He'd forgotten, in his panic, what this was always about. Hunter pushing and pushing, tormenting his life to try and mold Wally into his version of better, push him past his morals, had never been as selfless as his twisted mind had convinced himself it was. He wanted Wally to be better than Barry. Barry had killed his villain.

 _Drip_.

Hunter was just a broken, shattered mess of a man who'd used to be his friend.

"Y-you can't...can't make me hate you enough...for that."

Wally didn't know if that was true, but he needed that perspective clear in his mind. _Hunter_ needed that perspective. 

Black eyes twisted with fury. "I am _helping_ you!" 

_Drip_.

Wally found himself shoved face first against the wall. He ground his teeth together, breath already starting to pick up, fast and shallow. A needle of terror pierced the veil of nothing that had enveloped him, worming its way straight to his heart.

"I had lost _everything_ when you _lookedmeintheface_ and refusssedto help me! But I didn't hold it against you. I stayed yourfriend. And you wantto _patronissseme_?"

He hadn't intended to set him off with that, but the truth touched too close to home, it seemed. Hunter was losing it. Not his grip on reality - that was long gone - but his grip on time. Hunter stopped and took a deep, shaky breath.

"This," he continued, the words even again, an illusion of control, "is _exactly_ why I have to do this."

 _Drip_.

"I don't care if you _hate_ _me_."

Hands on his hips.

_'No.'_

Already ruined jeans yanked down past his knees.

 _'Not again_. _'_

The panic was distant still. Muted. He had one good arm, too many injuries to count, and could barely stand on his own. The bleeding, from the last time, had slowed to a trickle, but it hadn't stopped yet. Wally was in an even worse position to try and fight Hunter. He whimpered.

"I just want you to be _better_."

 _Drip_.

It hurt more, the second time. Wally squeezed his eyes shut and breathed through the pain. It hurt more, but he didn't scream again. Just soft, pained noises escaped through clenched teeth as Hunter fucked him, tearing into him all over again.

And yet…

His mind drifted, blinked away from what was happening, jumping from thought to thought to block it all out. The clarity he'd woken with was still there, sharper now than before. He realised:

He didn't have to fight Hunter.

_Drip._

The problem with fighting Hunter was catching him. He was both faster and slower, cursed with time rather than blessed with speed, and always one step ahead. It was how he could blindside Wally in a parking garage, how he could snatch both him and his son before the fastest man alive could react. 

Hunter wasn't ahead right now.

A lightning storm churned inside him, close where it had been distant before, but still too slippery to grab more than a handful. Enough, though.

It was enough.

 _Drip_.

He reached back, fingers groping around until they caught on the edges of Hunter's rolled down costume. Wally didn't need the contact – he choked, body jolting with a particularly brutal thrust – but it gave him a point of focus.

Hunter was silent except for his harsh breathing, punctuated by the occasional grunt, too caught up in making it hurt to notice the sparks of energy popping off Wally's arm. 

_Drip._

A blast of lightning erupted out of him, lashing backwards. Every drop of energy he could muster was forced out. It hurt, using his powers this way, like stretching out seized muscles, especially as it had to fight through whatever was interfering with them. 

Hunter froze as it happened, caught off guard, then jerked back, away from him - out of him - but the lightning was faster than he was. Hunter barely had time to yell out, the pained scream aborted, before a loud thud echoed through the sudden silence as he collapsed hard onto the ground, unconscious. Wally didn't have to look to see. 

_Drip_.

He could feel it again, weakly: the vibrations in the wall beneath his head, the lack of movement in the room behind him, the metal of the cuffs too dense for him to slip through if he even could. 

He kept his head resting against the wall, lethargy stopping him from moving. He was drained. The spark that had flared up inside him was beginning to recede. Wally knew he needed to move before that happened. 

He pushed up off the wall. Took his time pulling his pants up. One step. Two. Three. Legs wobbled dangerously, threatening to tip him over. Wally stilled. The pain seeped in when he stopped moving; he couldn’t stop now. Another step, then one away from the wall towards the door. His lungs were so tight he wasn’t sure he was breathing. 

Another step. Another. Anoth—

Wally’s legs gave out, and he collapsed down onto his knees.

 _Drip_.

He coughed. Blood splattered out onto the floor in front of him. Wally stared at it blankly. That wasn't good. He could barely even tell exactly what was broken inside him at this point, but beyond the obvious – underneath the thick layer of hurt that was everything Hunter had done to him – he could feel another, more familiar problem. 

Wally had pushed himself too far.

He felt like he had when he was a kid: when his powers were killing him that first time, but he'd gone and outrun that tornado anyway. He’d reached his limit: slammed straight up against the wall and shattered it, and the shards had ripped him up inside until they didn't anymore.

Wally had hit his limit again, but instead of shattering the wall, the wall had shattered him. He coughed again. The blood crept down his fingers, gathering into droplets, down, down, down...

 _Drip_.

As much as he loved his powers, they didn't always love him back in kind. He turned his head, looking back at Hunter over his shoulder. His body still twitched on the floor, but he was going to be out for hours. Hours that wouldn’t mean anything if Wally couldn’t fucking move. All the time in the world, but right now, still no time at all. 

He was falling. He’d blanked out for a second. The ground approached in slow motion, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to try and catch himself. It barely hurt when he hit the concrete.

_Drip._

Get up, he told himself. Get _up. Get up.Getup.Getupgetupgetupgetupget--_

 _Drip_.

He couldn’t move anymore. There was nothing to push past; there was nothing left for him to give. He would’ve laughed at the irony if that wouldn’t hurt so much. 

_Drip_.

He’d lost the first round, but he’d won this round. He hoped to God there wasn’t going to be a round three. He should’ve restrained Hunter somehow. There wasn’t really anything in the room that could hold him. Well, nothing in the room that could hold him that wasn’t already attached to Wally.

 _Drip_.

Maybe just a quick rest. He had time for...a quick rest. Not that he had much choice.

Fuck.

 _Drip_.

“—ally. Wally!” Arms wrapped around him, careful as they propped him up off the floor. 

He knew who it was before he’d fully awoken, mumbled out, “Barry,” as he opened his eyes to meet concerned blue ones looking down at him. There was someone else in the room with them, where Hunter had been, moving fast, running, and he panicked – would’ve struggled if he could move – before he realised it was, “Jay.” The word was barely audible, and by the time it was out, Jay was gone.

But that reminded him: “Jai!” he exclaimed, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come.

“He’s good,” Barry reassured. “He found us. He told us where you were.” Wally nodded. Relief was a wave washing over him, even as concern tightened around the corners of Barry’s eyes. “You’re not healing,” he said. Wally nodded again. 

_Drip_.

“Hal’ll be here soon,” Barry continued, his voice ever soothing. “He can move you safely, and we can get you over to your friends at S.T.A.R. labs.” 

Something else sat on the tip of Wally’s tongue, his next pressing worry. It took too long for him to form the words, for the half-slurred, “Hun’er,” to pass through his lips. 

Silence. 

_Drip_.

Black began to seep in around the edges of his vision. He blinked it away, waiting for a response. The arms around him tightened minutely. Not much; Barry was too in control, and Wally was too injured. But Barry wasn’t looking at Wally anymore, eyes instead pitched to the spot where Hunter had been, where he was gone from now, Wally saw when he glanced over, and he very nearly threw up his panic. Barry wasn’t worried, though, just angry – grim – and an incomprehensible sorrow sat on his face when he looked back down at Wally.

Wally couldn’t breathe.

Barry knew.

 _Drip_.

Wally’s sluggish mind suddenly couldn’t stop racing. Of course Barry knew. He wasn’t stupid; he was a police scientist, at that, and Wally hadn’t exactly taken the time to tuck Hunter’s dick away. Hadn’t taken time to wipe the blood off it. It wasn’t hard to guess. He squeezed his eyes tight, but that just squeezed the tears out.

“Dealt with,” Barry answered definitively, and it felt like it had been ten minutes, but it hadn’t even been seconds. “Iron Heights,” and that explained where Jay had gone. 

Jay probably knew, too.

 _Drip_.

His breath hitched, and a quiet sob broke free. And then another. And another. And another, until he was crying into Barry’s chest, shoulders shaking from the force of it all.

“I’m sorry,” Barry murmured into Wally’s hair. “I’m so sorry, Wally.”

“I—,” he squeezed out through the tears, but his voice was swallowed by desperate sobbing.

“You did good,” Barry continued, voice only shaking a little. It was all Wally always wanted to hear from him when he was ten, and it was everything Wally needed to hear right now. “You did _great_. Okay? You took him down. You saved Jai. Saved _yourself_.” 

_Drip_.

“You’re safe now."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)   
> Part 2 is almost finished; hopefully I'll have it up before too long.
> 
> I'm a slut for comments please and thanks.


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